King of the Wind (5 page)

To Agba the world was full of wonders, too. One day when a flock of storks was migrating to Sudan, Agba watched in awe as he saw Sham skimming the earth trying to match their flight. Such a wonderment and pride filled him that it was almost as if he had foaled the little colt himself. He had never known such joy as these days brought! Here was a fellow creature that needed him. Not for food and water alone, but for comfort. When Sham was afraid, he came running to Agba for protection. When he was cold, he sidled up to Agba for warmth. When he was lonely, he nuzzled Agba and laid his satin nose against the boy’s cheek.

What did it matter if the other colts thought Sham was different? He was!
They
ran to their mothers when they were hungry or in trouble. But Sham’s mother was a slim brown horseboy.

A
YEAR passed. And another. And Sham fulfilled the promise of the white spot. He grew strong, and his fleetness surpassed that of his dam. Whenever the horseboys raced their horses beyond the city gates, Sham outran them all. He outran the colts his own age and the seasoned running horses as well. He seemed not to know that he was an earthy creature with four legs, like other horses. He acted as if he were an airy thing, traveling on the wings of the wind. There came a time when none of the boys would challenge Agba’s horse any more, for constant defeat took the heart out of their mounts.

One spring morning when Agba was watering the other horses in his charge, Signor Achmet tapped him on the shoulder. The Signor’s face was drawn, and beads of perspiration dotted his upper lip.

“Agba,” he said in a voice drained of all swagger, “Sultan Mulai Ismael commands me to appear before him this day, at the hour when the sun is in the center of the world. He commands six horseboys to accompany me.”

The Signor’s words quickened. “You, Agba, will be one of the six. When you have watered the horses you will have your head shaved. The barber already awaits you. Then do you cleanse your body thrice over, from head to toe. Make ready.”

Agba’s eyes widened in terror. Sultan Mulai Ismael had reigned for over fifty years, and it was common knowledge that during his reign no horseboy summoned to the royal presence had ever returned. The Sultan was a fierce and bloodthirsty ruler. He thought nothing of ordering a thousand heads cut off to test the edge of a new saber. He thought nothing of commanding his soldiers to wipe out a whole village to test the power of his muskets.

Although the morning was warm, a chill of fear shook Agba from head to foot. If he did not return, who would there be to take care of Sham? Yet there was nothing to do but obey. He led the horses back to their stalls and went to the barber’s courtyard behind the stables. The barber was already at work. Four of the boys were shaved clean, except for a small tuft of hair left growing from the very top of their heads. Agba’s eyes noted the bloody scratches on the shaven places. Once
he had watched a shepherd shear some mountain goats. He seemed far gentler than the barber.

Suddenly it was Agba’s turn. The barber was sharpening his razor on a stone. Now he was skimming it over Agba’s head. It felt as if each hair were being pulled up by its root. The only comforting thought was the barber’s quickness. The ordeal would soon be over. Agba saw the other boys go to the well to draw water for their baths, and soon he was joining them.

Razor still in hand, the barber watched to see that the boys washed each finger and toe separately, and to make certain that they poured three vessels of water over themselves, each time washing their fingers and toes singly.

The sun was almost overhead when at last they stood ready, alike as six blades of grass. Red felt caps on each head. Long, coarse mantles with hoods. Bare, browned feet. And clutched in each bosom a chameleon for good luck.

In single file they joined Signor Achmet and marched down the long corridor between the stalls.

Plop, plop. Plop, plop.
The soles of their feet made dull, thudding sounds on the earth. To Agba they echoed the noise of his heart.
Plop, plop. Plop, plop.
Brown legs moved forward, alongside a high outer wall, then up and up a steep ramp to the entrance of the Sultan’s sacred precincts.

Two rows of royal guards flanked the entrance. They stood so still they might have been a banding of sculptured figures. But Agba could feel their eyes upon him, stinging his flesh like sand particles driven by the wind. As the frightened company halted, six guards came to life. They opened wide the gate, made a sweeping bow to Signor Achmet, and waved him and his retinue inside.

It was a gallery they had entered, with gleaming white columns and arches fitted with glazed tiles bluer than the skies.
Plop, plop. Plop, plop.
The bare feet of the horseboys marched on, down the endless passageway where birds flew wildly as if seeking escape. On and on they went, through a second gate, through an inner court, through yet another gate. Agba shuddered as each gate closed behind him. It was like the sharp crackling sound that comes with lightning. But no rumble of thunder followed. Only a stillness. It weighed on Agba’s head, on his shoulders. It made breathing difficult.

Now, at a gate that was grander than the others, a fierce-looking guard barred their progress. He pointed in disdain at Signor Achmet’s head and his feet. Quickly the Signor threw back his hood and removed his slippers. The slaveboys had no slippers to take off, but they, too, dropped their hoods.

So, silently, the frightened company filed down the last gallery and came out upon the garden of Sultan Mulai Ismael, Emperor of all Morocco.

W
ILD AND discordant music met their ears. Bagpipes, lutes, and tom-toms fought for supremacy. Agba did not heed them. Nor did he notice when the music stopped altogether, and gave way to the tinkling notes made by fountains of water playing in marble basins.

All his senses were trained on a wide dais at the end of the garden. There, sitting cross-legged on an embroidered red carpet, was Sultan Mulai Ismael himself.

The Sultan held the boy transfixed. He wore a towering white turban and a dazzling white robe with a golden sash. But what struck Agba was that in spite of the fine mantle and
a beard whiter than driven snow, the old man reminded him of a camel. His eyes were hidden by heavy folds of eyelids, like a camel’s, and his lips were thick and slit in two, and there was a big hump on his back. Even his feet were like those of a camel, spongy and broad and shapeless.

“Perhaps I am not going to be beheaded after all!” Agba thought. “The Sultan does not look like a man to be feared. He is nothing but a camel!”

Agba would not have been surprised in the least to see him rise up and swing along through the garden, stopping to feed on the leaves of the orange trees and the jasmine bushes.

Signor Achmet was kissing the Sultan’s shoulder now, and bowing to the ground. Meanwhile, a master of ceremonies placed each horseboy on one of the square tiles, like men on a chessboard. He arranged them behind the Signor, yet so placed that the Sultan could look full into the face of each boy.

Agba’s eyes swept the throne. Squatting on small mattresses to the right of the Sultan sat the royal fly-flicker, the sword-carrier, the slipper man, the tea-maker. To the left were officers, messengers, and watch-keepers.

“Signor Achmet!” The Sultan broke the silence.

Frightened as he was, Agba wanted to laugh out, for even the Sultan’s voice was high and shrill, like a camel that objects to being mounted.

“Signor Achmet!” he screaked. “I charge you, as head groom in the service of the Sultan of Morocco, to select six of the most perfect steeds in the royal stables. They will be a gift to His Majesty, Louis XV, the boy King of France.”

The Sultan paused to let his words sink in. A fly buzzed close to his nose, and the fly-flicker deftly waved it away with a silken handkerchief.

“With six of your best horseboys,” he went on, “you will accompany these steeds on their journey to the court of Versailles. And you will present them to the King in person.”

So soft a sigh escaped the horseboys that it was lost in the little wind that stroked the trees.

“Seven days from this day,” the Sultan was saying, “you will depart. At the exact moment, on the seventh day, when the sun strikes upon the tower of the mosque, you will come to the palace gate. It will be the hour of your going.”

The Sultan twitched his thick lips. “A galleon already awaits you at Tangier. I have had stalls builded into its hold, complete with mangers. I have ordered a store of corn and chopped barley to be laid in on the day of your arrival in Tangier. Am I, or am I not, great?”

Signor Achmet bowed low. The personal attendants, the officers and messengers, the six horseboys, bowed low.

Mulai Ismael rocked back on his haunches. He wriggled his great shapeless toes. It was plain to see that he was enamored of this idea that had come to him. For a long moment he sat thus. Then he leaned forward abruptly. “Do you, or do you not, have a question?”

“Sire,” asked the Signor, “shall the horses be mares or stallions?”